“As the economy has grown, manufacturing become more competitive, the dealers still control that pipe. And so they get really rich. … They're the third highest industry in terms of total dollars of pass-through business income that comes from these privately held businesses, which is kind of shocking because you don't think of it as a particularly innovative industry.”
Prof G Markets · Money & Markets · October 2026
Zwick, co-author of a book on America's "everywhere millionaires," explains how state franchise laws meant to protect small car dealers from big manufacturers now shield them from competition. He puts beer distributors, realtors and licensed professions in the same category.
Transcript
…it seems like the tax policy has been designed to protect their wealth, preserve their wealth. Yes, expand access, but make it easier to get to that point. And we have seen this widening of inequality. So I guess, Owen, what do you make of the tax breaks that we have made for this group of people?
…industries, like auto dealerships, beer distributors, which sounds to me like an expression of that problem that you bring up. So could you expand on that, Eric? How did we come to this, arrive at this place of protecting monopolies in industries that a lot of us don't really think about that much?
…to, you know, Ford next to, and they all have the same person's name under it, as opposed to a sedan shop? It's like a legacy of these auto dealer protections. And as the economy has grown, manufacturing become more competitive, the dealers still control that pipe. And so they get really rich. And so they end up being just like an incredibly central character in this sort of top 1% income share. They're the third highest industry in terms of total dollars of pass-through business income that comes from these privately held businesses, which is kind of shocking because you don't think of it as a particularly innovative industry. And it's not an industry where folks are that rich. I think in lots of other countries, it's a legacy of these little protections. Other industries where we kind of see these everywhere millionaires setting up kind of barriers to enter, the beer distributors. We talk about the realtors, which have a different way of protecting their turf using either control of the MLS or using the contact track…
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